Hilda Tracy (14 October 1927 – 9 February 2010) worked at University of Liverpool, UK, with Rod Gregory FRS to isolate and characterise the gastrointestinal hormone gastrin.
She was soon seconded to the University of Liverpool and joined the newly appointed Rod Gregory, Holt Professor of Physiology, and Head of Department, as a research assistant in 1950.
Between 1962 and 1968 their work isolated gastrin for the first time and sequenced it (in collaboration with George Kenner from the Department of Chemistry at University of Liverpool).
[2][4] They developed methods to isolate the 17 aminoacid gastrin peptide, starting from hundreds of pig stomachs for each preparation and initially identified two forms, distinguished by sulphation of a tyrosine residue.
[8][9] In 2017 the annual Hilda Tracy Lecture was inaugurated in the Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool, the successor organisation to where she worked.